St. Valentine’s Day Massacre    



 

On February 14, 1929, Capone ordered the murder of George Bugs Moran the leader of a rival bootlegging operation.

The hit was orchestrated by one of Capone’s top associates, Jack Machine Gun McGurn.  McGurn put together an assassination squad comprised of several out-of-towners. He had a bootlegger, Fred Burke, lure the Moran gang to a garage to buy some very good whiskey at an extremely attractive price. The other members of the squad, two were dressed in stolen police uniforms and two wearing trench coats, entered the garage as though it were a raid. The bootleggers, assuming it
was a raid; dropped their weapons, lined up against the wall, and awaited further instructions. The crew opened fire on the seven men killing all of them.

To further perpetuate this charade, the two "policemen" in trench coats put up their hands and marched out of the garage in front of the two uniformed policemen. .Anyone who watched this show believed that two bootleggers in trench coats had been arrested by two policemen. The four assassins left in the stolen police car.

Unfortunately for Capone, Bugs Moran was not one of the men murdered. Moran, running late to the meeting at the garage, spotted the approaching police car and avoided the scene; not wanting to get caught in what he assumed was a raid.

Although he was never charged, Capone was credited with what would be deemed one of the most famous mass murders in American history, the... St. Valentine's Day Massacre.   
                                                                                              

 
On lookers watch as authorities remove the bodies of the seven men from the garage
                   
Victims of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Pictured left to right; Bugs Moran (the head of the gang and intended victim), Frank Gusenberg, Dr. Schwimmer, James Clark, Albert Weinshank, John May, Adam Heyer, Pete Gusenberg.